Blood Lust: A Supernatural Horror (41 page)

The
fetid
odor
of decomposition
hi
t me like a solid wall
.
Joria’s
gasp barely registered on my senses.

“My God
,
”
Calloway
burst out before puking in the hallway.

I
barely
managed to keep from
retching myself
,
but my stomach
rebelled
at the sm
e
ll and the sight that greeted me. Three bodies lay side-by-side on the living room floor, three young girls,
half-naked
, throats and chests ripped open, swollen with decomposition amid a
lake
of dried blood. Flies buzzed loudly
as they came and went
at leisure
through the smashed b
alcony door
.

My heart sank.
The flash of gray I had seen in the woods, the strange sounds, and the falling pine tree were not imaginary.
I had been
watched, toyed with
.
The proof was here before me.
I had missed one or more of the juveniles
in my
Chupacabra
hunt
. Now, it was taking up where daddy
had
left off. I was its target. It had left the girls’ bodies here to remind me the game was not over.
Like father, like son
, I mused grimly
.

“Call the police,” I said; then repeated it as
Calloway
stared frozen at the horrific tableau
on my floor
.

He broke out of his trance and rushed
down the hall
to his apartment
.
I glanced at Joria. She
stared
back
in
mute
horror.
I swallowed the bile rising in my gullet and walked inside to examine the bodies
more closely
. One girl had been dead for
three or
four
days
,
the others only one or two days.
Besides the maggots, flies and crusted blood, there were traces of ash on the bodies.
I shook my head in sorrow.
Tonight, some mother was going to learn of the death of her
missing
daughter and wonder if it was ever going to end.

My apartment had been ransacked. The creature had
overturned
chairs and tables, smashed photos, slashed my sofa and pulled books down from the bookcase. Two books lay open on my desk, a book
of
police procedures and a book of poetry. I wondered if the creature could read as well as speak. If so, it would come as no surprise. I had consistently underestimated the creatures al
l
along. They had survived as a species for millennia, as individuals for centuries. During that
time,
they had
undoubtedly
picked up a few tricks.
I studied the ash on the bodies.
There was nothing burned in my apartment and I had no fireplace. Where had the ash come from? Faced with the overwhelming evidence of the return of a
Chupacabra
, I dismissed the ash as inconsequential.

I closed my door to prying neighbors and waited
for
the police
to arrive
.

“Is it…?
”
Joria couldn’t finish her question.
The look on my face provided her answer.

“While you were there, in the mill with the creatures, did you see more than one juvenile?”

She shook her head. “No, just the one, which you killed.”

“I saw three egg cases and killed all three. There had to be at least one more, hidden somewhere.
”

Joria backed up from the strident tone of my voice. I realized sheepishly I
had unconsciously slipped into my suspect-questioning mode. I took a deep breath and asked more softly, “
Can a
Chupacabra
birth more than three offspring at one time?”

“No.”

My stomach tightened. I knew she was lying
. She knew there had been one more
of the creatures
. I could hear it in her voice.
I nodded silently, afraid to speak in my disappointment.

When a pair of uniformed officers arrived
fifteen minutes later
, they took one look at the scene and raced from the room
retching
. Munson arrived
ten
minutes
after them
with his new assistant, a young man in his early twenties with a shaved head, three earri
n
gs in one ear and a
Maori tattoo above one eyebrow. I wondered how he got along with the staunch
ly
conservati
ve
Munson.

Munson took a brief glance at the scene and
then
looked at me
and
pronounced
sadly,
“I thought it was
over
.”

“So did I. I saw no sign of a fourth egg. I guess I should have looked further.”
I cast a quick glance at Joria sitting in the hallway with her back against the wall but she was paying no attention to the proceedings.

“Before you burned
down
the church?” he a
dded
with one eyebrow raised.

“Yeah,” I answered
, properly chastised.
“Before I burned down the church.”

“
I checked before we left.
We
’ve
only had
one re
port
on
a
missing girl. Everyone prayed she was just a runaway. I guess God only answers certain prayers.”

I shook my head. “God’s got nothing to do with this case. These creatures are straight out of hell and that’s where I’ve got to send it.”

Munson eyed me suspiciously. “Don’t go all
Rambo
on us, Hardin, uh
Detective
Hardin. You tried that once before and look where it got you. Why not work with the team on this one?”

I smiled. “I don’t work and play well with others, Doc.”

“
I’ve noticed that.
There’s nothing more you can do here. Why don’t you
and your lady friend
go check into a hotel for a few days? You can’t stay here.”

I looked at the blood and the mutilated bodies and sighed.
I doubted I would ever be able to sleep there again.
“I guess you’re right.”
I walked over to Joria and looked down at her. Her eyes, when she returned my gaze
, were cold and distant.

“You don’t believe me,” she said.

“You’ve been holding out on me all along. Now, I’ve got three more dead girls.
This damn thing was in the woods at the cabin. How the hell did it find me?”

“You think I brought it?” she shot at me.

I shook my head sadly. “I don’t know what to think anymore. I want to believe you, to believe that there’s something between us, but
I’m a cop. It’s my nature to be suspicious.”

She stood and faced me. “Then be less of a cop and more of a man. Let your heart guide you.”
She glanced around. “Take me from this place.”

Outside in
the
Explorer,
I gripped the steering wheel so tightly my hands ached. I drove around town
half in a daze
, paying no attention to where I was going.
Finally, I realized we needed a place to stay. I located a motel near the airport and checked in.
I had
only
the clothes I had brought
with me
to the cabin. I had not bothered to take anything from my apartment.
Joria immediately locked herself in the bathroom. I plopped down on the bed and tried to focus my thoughts. The bodies had been a message
, but what, exactly was the message. I remembered the ash. Ash meant a fire. There was only one fire common to both the Chupacabra
and me
.

“The monastery,” I whispered
.
Could the creature still be using the ruins as a base? It had been born or hatched here, so it was possible it had a bond of familiarity with the place.

I sat up on the edge of the bed and looked at the bathroom. “Joria,” I called out. She did not answer. “I have to go out for a while. I’ll be back.”
I hoped she would unlock the door and come out or at least answer me, but
to my bitter disappointment
,
she did neither.

The monastery
was a scar within the old walls.
I
parked
outside the walls
and
walked around
eyeing the ruins
. There was little left
of it
but a shell. The
m
onastery
had collapsed into the basement and catacombs.
A deep depression filled with rubble marked the location of the old mill
along the dried up riverbank. Of the entire structure, only
the
outer
compound wall and
a small
section
of the newer church remained, roofless but the walls were intact. The fire department had concentrated on this area, fighting back the main fire. I walked inside
through the gaping front door
.

Water from the hoses had swept the center of the floor almost clean of dirt, ash and debris
but p
atches of soot remained along
the
wall
s
. I examine
d
the soot and saw that it had recently
been
disturbed. I also found dried blood and pieces of cloth. I was right. The creature had returned to familiar territory.

“I could kill you now.”

I spun to
find
the creature sitting atop a piece of the broken wall. Except for a small patch of lighter gray
along
one wing, it was an exact duplicate of the adult. It squatted, staring at me with its head cocked slightly.

“
As men, we are all equal in the presence of death
. Publilius Syrus said that in 100 BC.
You do not fear death.
My parent and my siblings misjudged you. I shall not.”

It felt odd having a conversation with the creature, but I knew my .45 would not kill it. Conversation might be the only thing keeping me alive.

“You read that in my book
of poetry
,” I
replied
, recognizing the passage
from one of the open books on my table
.
“
I got your message.”

A cross between a sneer and a
look of condescension
flickered across
its gargoyl
e-like
f
eatures
. “I could not let you believe you had won.”
 

I smiled.
“
I decimated the old family pretty good though, didn’t I?”

The creature raised its head and screamed
shrilly
. It raised its wings and I thought it was coming after me, but it settled down.

“
Only two siblings of
a brood of
four
survive past hatching.
I would have had to fight my elde
st
sibling for dominance. You saved me that task
; therefore, I live
. For this, I shall let you live if you leave this place and take no heed of me
or my kind again
.”

I shook my head. “I can’t do that. It’s my job to stop you.”

“You cannot
, but I will soon leave
this place
.
Other regions beckon
me
.
Forget me.
Take the life I offer you.
”

The creature
sounded adamant about my leaving it alone, but I also thought I detected something else in its voice
–
fear.
It was stronger, yet I had managed to kill its parent and three of its siblings. I decided to play on that fear.

“I won’t give you the chance
to leave
. The time for your kind is over. There’s no room for you anymore.
Earth belongs to humans.
”